Don't Yell Over Spilled Yogurt, Growing Hearts, and The Baby Grace Brought

Little J spilled her yogurt this morning. She was sitting at the counter happily eating, when BAM - it was like a yogurt bomb went off. Yogurt on the floor, yogurt on the counter, yogurt on the cabinet doors, yogurt on my FOOT! I felt it inside of me, the frustrated response, the one that instantly wanted to yell - "What DID you DO?!?!?! - Why? How? There is yogurt on my FOOT!" However, I took a breath (I have found that, as a general rule, breathing is beneficial,) and instead said, "Don't worry honey, we can clean it up together. No big deal."  My insides followed my outside response pretty quickly, and Little J experienced grace.

Exhibit A - Yogurt Foot

Our homestudy was scheduled to be presented to the Special Needs Adoption Program (SNAP) Council for our county/state this past Monday.  However, on Tuesday, I got an email saying that "out homestudy was inadvertently left off the presentation list." Left off, after 18 months of it being inadvertently lost in the process, thinking it had been approved the whole time while we were fostering and hoping for a long-term adoptive placement.  Inside I wanted to yell, "What DID you DO? Or Not DO! How? Why?"  However, again I took a breath, a breathing in and out kind of prayer, and instead said, "OK. I understand. It will all be OK. In the right time, God will bring the right children into our home and not a single child has come or left our home on accident."  Our caseworker experienced grace.

It has been a year since Baby J came and invaded our lives and hearts, and 6 months since he left our family. Six months of grieving and thanking God for his life and the part we got to play in it and crying for the parts that we will not get to be a part of, mourning the hole that he left in our hearts - the one that used to feel like a gaping wound.  There is a huge need for foster families in our county, and I am pretty sure the same is true nationwide. Jeremy and I talked, we prayed, we got the opinions of our J-Crew and the response was unanimous and passionate, "It is time."  So, yesterday, after breathing in my frustrations and breathing out grace about the missed SNAP approval, I told our case worker that she could put us back on the call list for a foster placement.  Fostering isn't about me or us. It isn't about growing our family. It isn't about the pain of "what if they leave." Fostering is about a child, a child who has no one in this whole world to offer them safety, love, family, a home, or hope for today.  So, you can call us again, we have room, there is a hole where Baby J was that another child will not fill, but God will grow our hearts to make room for another....

They say your heart is about the same size as your fist. J.S. has one tiny fist....

The call came the same day.  Would we accept the placement of Baby J.S., a 5 day old little tiny baby man, he really needs a family for now?  Now, we have a baby - he is even a "J" Baby!!! (Unbelievable.)  He may go live with a relative after a hearing today. He may stay with us for a few days, weeks, months or forever. We don't know.  So, we will love him for today, for these minutes and hours, all of the breaths in and out. We will feed him two ounces of formula every two hours day and night and hope and pray that he continues to avoid the pain and torture of withdrawal from addictions that he did not choose. We will choose hope and grace and cling to the knowledge that Baby J.S. is not here on accident and although some things happen "inadvertently," nothing is lost in the the hands of our Good Father. Welcome to the family, Baby J.S, the baby that GRACE brought.